Samsung Electronics has offered to stop taking rivals such as Apple to court in Europe over patent disputes in order to end an antitrust investigation, and the European Commission is calling for comments or objections to Samsung's proposal.

The Commission has said it believes the South Korean company may have abused its patent portfolio to stifle competition in areas where its technology is dominant, using lawsuits to block rivals such as Apple from bringing products to market when it should be offering licenses to use the technology on reasonable terms. The Commission has concerns that Samsung's seeking of injunctions against Apple in the European Economic Area (EEA) on the basis of its mobile SEPs may have amounted to an abuse of a dominant position prohibited by EU antitrust rules.

To remedy these concerns, Samsung has offered to abstain from seeking injunctions for mobile SEPs for a period of five years against any company that agrees to a particular licensing framework.

The Comission said that interested parties could submit their comments within one month. If the Commission concludes, in light of the comments received, that the commitments address the competition concerns, it may decide to make them legally binding on Samsung.